Dogs do not currently host any programming on The Travel Channel, and when we do travel and dine, it's strictly No Reservations; most restaurants and resorts don't welcome your favorite pet.  Obtaining a passport is difficult if not impossible for the contemporary canine, since we don't generally possess birth certificates and driver's licenses. My own travel experience has been limited to trips from Fond du Lac to Milwaukee to meet my owner when I was a pup, and a road trip to Manitowoc for a tennis tournament. After a two hour ride, I didn't even get to play!  Sure I get to ride arround with the master on errands and such, but exotic locales are foreign to my experience. My ancestors, wolves, used to get around quite a bit; they would experience different cuisines and cultures as they roamed the wild in search of deer, caribou and elk.  They might have made interesting travel hosts if they had had the chance back in the day.  Anthony Bourdain might have never gotten his opportunity if wolves or dogs were given the chance to try out for the job.

Since most dogs can't travel the world physically these days, we often engage in mental meandering in order to satisfy our wanderlust. Although it might appear that we are sedentary, our minds are often engaged in vicarious voyages to various viewpoints.  French Poodles imagine what it must be like to be British Great Danes, American Beagles picture themselves in the guise of a German Shepherd.  Rottweilers get inside the heads of Chihuahuas.  We do this to alleviate boredom, but it has the side benefit of giving us an understanding of how it might feel to be the little guy, or the big guy, or the smart dog (for example a particular poodle point of view).  This understanding and empathy is one of the reasons why you can see many different dog breeds encountering each other, tolerating each other, and quite frankly, sniffing each other's butts when they congregate.  It's all a product of our worldview travelling.

As I have become more human in my thinking, I find that there are new ways to spend adventurous mental time exploring colorful cultural customs.  Television and movies, books, and the internet enable me to gain the knowledge that I need in order to experience different cultures, cuisines, religions and ideologies.  I can identify with the character I am reading about in the novel I'm reading.  With a little effort of the imagination I might become that character for a time, and envision what it would be like to live in her time, in her place, in her situation. I could visit Psychology or Anthropology, Science or Sociology, Ideology or Ontology. I might even make a stop in Tautology. I might be Buddhist for a week, Hindu for a day, Muslim for a month. Travelling the worldviews means leaving the province you grew up in, and striking out to see another point of perspective for a period of time.  As in the physical world, there will be dangers and bad neighborhoods encountered.  It might be good to have a mental watchdog along for protection.  You might come back from your worldview travelling a changed animal.  Old ideologies might be shattered, preconceived notions nullified. And you don't even have to go to the airport!  The next time you come home from work and walk in the door, I might look like I'm just laying there on the floor, a sleeping dog lying. Who would ever know that I'm really a canine Columbus, on a perilous voyage in search of the Antipodes and Spice Islands of the mind, a wide-eyed worldview traveller, with No Reservations.

Buffy Bourdain
Reservations Please?